According to the Wall Street Journal, Disney has a new trick up their sleeve in distributing the latest flatulence themed half-sequel to The Lion King: a new cloud computing digital distribution model called Keychest which they hope will position them on hundreds of different devices, from computers to cell phones.

Keychest is a subscription service, sort of like Netflix, which allows consumer to pay a single price to permanent access to a movie or television show across multiple platforms or devices. If you buy a movie over Keychest, you can access it on your laptop via the Web, but also from your cell phone or iPhone, or even across cable services that support on-demand viewing.

It’s important to note that Keychest isn’t an umbrella for numerous, differently DRMed files that are individually downloaded and tied down to each device you own. Rather, the files would be streamed to anything with web access. Your computer will never host a file.

Right now, Keychest is in the development stage, and Disney is approaching various movie studios and technology companies. On their part, Disney has long-term goals for Keychest: Bob Chapek, president of Disney’s Home Entertainment division, says that they don’t expect Keychest to deliver tangible financial results for five years, but claims that in combination with Blu-Ray, Keychest “should bring our category back up to a healthy state where we can expect growth in the future.”

Keychest sounds like an interesting idea, but with cell providers still not allowing 3G content streaming, and with other companies having already staked a significant claim on the on-demand streaming market, Disney’s going to have a battle on their hands getting Keychest established. Five years is probably a realistic goal for profitability.